From Friday’s Austin Chronicle…
Singer’s futile July 2004 efforts, attempting to notify the Secretaries of State in both Texas and Ohio, were originally reported in exclusive detail by The BRAD BLOG in March of 2006.
Following discussions we had with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after our report, he and his radio co-host, Florida attorney Mike Papantonio, filed a federal qui tam whistleblower suit [PDF] on behalf of Singer.
The complaint charges fraud and other violations of the False Claims Act by Hart, including allegations the company failed to test its products properly, and frequently at all; withheld information from prospective clients about the potential loss of votes in its voting systems; dummied-up machines, reports, and test results presented to clients in sales presentations; and much more in an attempt to win state and county contracts and the federal money that came with them…
Singer’s stunning suit was finally unsealed two years later by a federal judge last March, after the U.S. Dept. of Justice finally declined to join the suit.
Short of several excellent reports (see here and here) by Dan Campana of the Beacon News, based in Kane County, IL (where they also use the same, faulty Hart e-slate systems), there has been little coverage of the suit, other than by The BRAD BLOG. But what else is news?
Vote Rescue, as mentioned in the Chronicle’s coverage, is a non-partisan Election Integrity organization based in Austin. In addition to their on-the-ground EI efforts, the group has a two-hour weekly Sunday radio program on We The People Radio, hosted by members Vickie Karp and Karen Renick, featuring reporters (such as ourselves) and other EI advocates and whistleblowers.
Hart is currently attempting a hostile take-over of competitor Sequoia Voting Systems. Hanging in the balance, among other things, a new $100 million contract recently struck between Sequoia and New York state to supply them with new optical-scan voting systems in time for this November’s general election.
So far, we’ve been unable to receive comment from NY authorities in regard to any concerns they may have about doing business with Hart, a company with a federal fraud lawsuit hanging over their head, instead of Sequoia who they recently chose, instead of Hart, for their massive, new state contracts.
When I lived in Alaska where all my children were born, one of my buddies used to threaten Texas.
He said if you get too jiggy wid it we will cut Alaska in half, and you will then be the third largest state.
Not many Texans got it, because it involved sharp points.
Texas does not do sharp points. Be Roy Blunt folks if you wanna do the Texas two step.
I have been an election judge in a number of elections from 2004 thru 2008, using the eSlate machines. I have had a few minor problems with them, including one machine in the March, 2008, primary, which quit working and had to be taken offline. In the 2004 general election, there were a couple of cases where a person apparently started out voting a straight Republican ticket and then voted in individual elections, and the machine at some point got hung up in some way (I don’t remember the exact details). By changing the to a straight Democratic ticket, and then back to a straight Republican ticket, the voter could start over and no problem was encountered twice by the same voter. This happened perhaps 3 or 4 times out of 500 or more voters. We never sent anything over the phone lines, and the machine is in a sealed box until election day (in the most recent elections).